Halt Arab League summits until we see real change

The Arab League’s final statement covered everything that could possibly be agreed on in the Arab world. From calling for the liberation of the three Emirati islands occupied by Iran to calling for the liberation of the Comoro Mayotte island which France occupies.

The statement, however, did not issue threats to any party or oblige any party to take any measures on implementing certain demands. It's as if the final statement was drafted after touching on each Arab delegation's requests and after excluding anything that might raise disputes among the Arab brothers.

What mattered was that the summit succeeds, not that the Arab states achieve anything. Everyone - including those who attended the summit - knows that it's impossible for Arabs to succeed in getting along and the fact that no disputes or arguments erupted is a success on its own.

Everyone also knows that there are huge differences among Arab countries and leaders. New front lines, which differ from the ones that divided the Arab republics and monarchies, or as revolutionaries call them - "progressive powers and reactionary ones," have been drawn.

During the 70s and 80s, they were divided over peace with Israel. They displayed an oppositional front confronting moderate powers. During the first decade of this century, notions of resistance replaced oppositional sentiments. This lasted until the Arab Spring erupted.

The annual Arab League summit was initially postponed but then resumed amid some optimism. Terms like reform, popular participation, youth aspirations, human rights and development were introduced to the summit. Some of those backward powers returned and the front lines were mixed once again.

But there are no longer two oppositional camps, there are several. We have seen a surge in careless camps that only care about their own interests as they wait and see how the region's many transitional phases play out.

This time, Kuwait succeeded in safely holding and wrapping up the summit. Will Egypt do so next year? Egypt is on the verge of having a new leader and difficult years ahead, a sentiment that the country’s likely upcoming president has also expressed.

Why has the European Union succeeded at moving forward but we can't? The approach is unfair but it can be used to examine the reasons behind the incapability of Arabs to build a continuous and permanent system for Arab mutual work. The latter term has been emptied of its content although it's present in all Arab League summits and official statements.

Lessons from the European Union

European Union countries have established a mutual philosophical and legal base. The standards they've established for the union are not based on geography or on Europe's nationalism but on the similarity or perhaps the correspondence in governance styles of democracy: peaceful transitions of power, human rights and a fair judicial system.

EU countries have established a parliament which is considered a legislative authority that everyone abides by and it's tasked with reviewing the legislations of each country. There's also a European court tasked with reviewing legislations and freedoms in all EU countries.

The EU and its standards are to thank for increasing the freedoms and rights in Turkey. After the Justice and Development Party made it to power in 2002, it's believed that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan played the card of joining the EU - which is a popular demand in Turkey - in his confrontation with the army.

The army formerly dominated political life in Turkey but Erdogan expanded the scope of freedoms, reformed the judiciary and cancelled many constitutional articles that restricted freedoms until he sent the army back to the barricades under the excuse of meeting the conditions of joining the EU.

This mutual philosophical structure is what enabled the Europeans to fulfill the greatest of their achievements in 1993 as the body’s treaty went into effect. The treaty guaranteed the free circulation of goods, capital, people and services within the EU. Countries within the EU kept their borders, regimes, armies, political parties and taxes.

They also maintained their own foreign policies. For example, Germany was not enthusiastic about military intervention in Libya in 2011 but it did not prevent the intervention of other EU members. Despite the differences between the EU's 28 countries, there always remained a minimum amount of mutual commitment to freedoms, democracy, human rights and justice.

We haven't yet agreed to these concepts in our Arab world. We want to jump over these concepts to achieve “mutual Arab work” which we cannot implement on the ground and with which we comfort ourselves with loose dreamy terms. But Arab people no longer accept this thanks to awareness and freedom of information and they now aspire for the best and criticize the status quo.

The people are no longer willing to clap for leaders as they go hand in hand to Arab League summits. They have become willing to yell at them and ask them: what have you provided us with? Where are our rights? So in order for the Arab League summit to not to be another cause for Arab anger and frustration, postpone them.

This article was first published in al-Hayat on March 29, 2014.

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Jamal Khashoggi is a Saudi journalist, columnist, author, and general manager of the upcoming Al Arab News Channel. He previously served as a media aide to Prince Turki al Faisal while he was Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. Khashoggi has written for various daily and weekly Arab newspapers, including Asharq al-Awsat, al-Majalla and al-Hayat, and was editor-in-chief of the Saudi-based al-Watan. He was a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan, and other Middle Eastern countries. He is also a political commentator for Saudi-based and international news channels.